April 2005 Meeting &

Plant of the Month Competition

Travels in the Transvaal

This month we had a visit from
Dorothy Minors, who lives in Sheffield. This was the second part of the travelogue on her journey through South Africa and she said it was like a dream come true, seeing all the plants.

While she was there she visited Succulenta 96 which was held in Johannesburg, at the zoo gardens, where they also saw armoured cars. With her were eight members from the U.K. and there was seven good speakers. It was not a show but a display of lovely
plants. Next they saw the private collection of Ralph Peckover and
heard about the early spring in the Transvaal at a place called Pilgrims Rest.

In the second half of the talk we were shown some habitat plants, I.e.. Euphorbia and Aloes - also "the big tree" - Baobab which is a very large tree, We also saw Cycads in fruit. Then we were shown a place called "Gods Window" and the Ushveld tour where we saw live tortoises. Dorothy gave us a good
insight into the Transvaal.